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Navy's Kraffen/Chapter 1
May 8th, 1970 A man looks at himself in a mirror. The face looking in is curious as to what kind of man he is. He examines himself and makes his decision. The ultimate decision that submits a man to his fate, the decision that decides what sort of morals he may have. Whether he is good or evil, a hero or a villain. The face looking out of the mirror waits silently and with patience for the answer. Today, that man is Marley Quarrel. His turquoise eyes stared themselves down. His gold colored hair was messily combed back on his head, and he had a little peach fuzz growing above his top lip. His nose was thin. He stared coldly at the mirror and made his decision. He pulled the hoodie of his black coat over his head and hid his face in the darkness. There was an old, abandoned military bomb shelter out in the woods built into the obscure government-protected Karma Hill that Marley had repurposed as a drugstore. He sold all sorts of products, just about anything that he could get his hands on. His father was an important man in the city of Kraffen and had many connections. During the day, Marley worked as a janitor at the Kraffen High School, where he would often steal equipment for business. He wasn’t a cook himself, but he would often get customers looking for the equipment. Marley arrived outside of the store and watched the old neon “The Oasis” sign flicker. The colorful sign, however, did not reflect the contents of the bunker. The entrance was a large steel blast door designed to protect the shelter from a nuclear explosion. The shelter was windowless and the walls were made of steel. Dirt poked through the cracks in the walls and ceiling and was piled up in the corners of the main room. It was a large shelter but the only room in the building that was at all accessible was the main room, all the other rooms would only open up in the event of a nuclear attack. He turned the valve on the blast door and pushed it open with all his might. He walked in and was greeted by an ominously clear voice. “Quarrel.” Marley spun around and whipped out a handgun. “Whoa, holy crap! Who was that?!” “As suspected,” the voice said. A pull-cord light was turned on above the transaction counter. “Take a seat,” said a young man, who was already sitting down with a gun pointed directly at Marley’s head. “Drop the weapon.” Marley kept his gun pointed at the young man. “Who do you think you are? Get out!” “You are on the wrong side of the law on this one, Quarrel. My name is Grant Rene, commander of the military. And this is an old military-operated bomb shelter. I expect you to sit down and drop the weapon right now!” The commander stood up, cocked his gun and pointed it directly at Marley’s head. Marley gasped and threw his handgun to the side, then proceeded to sit down with his hands raised. He got a closer look at the commander, who had an intimidating appearance. He had a pure black military haircut and cold, black eyes. Instead of wearing a typical camouflage uniform, he appeared to be wearing some sort of heavy-duty black armor. An assault rifle hung on his back and a military combat knife hung at his side. He had a utility belt with all kinds of strange, unidentifiable weapons and tools on him. “Very good. Now you see, we have been watching these activities of yours for months. We know everything about this operation. The average amount of customers you get daily, their names, where they live, drug history, and where their labs are,” Grant said calmly. “Just arrest me already,” Marley snarled. “If you do not cooperate with my demands then I will,” the commander responded. “What do you want from me?” asked Marley. “I want every tiny, every single grain of the oramania in this facility found and contained,” Grant said. “That’s insane, man! How do you expect me to do that?” the criminal asked. “Oramania has some interesting properties that makes it stick out from any other drug or mineral known to man. I want you to watch this, Quarrel.” Grant took some strange tool from his belt, outstretched it as far up as he could, and pressed a button. Marley watched in amazement as electricity crackled and the lights in the room flickered off and died. They watched as the electricity began to zap at different areas of the floor and the countertop. Small purple sparks began to fly into the air and tiny grains of some kind of substance began to light up in a bright purple color. Grant pressed the button again and it all stopped, and the room’s lights flickered on again. “What the hell was that?” Marley looked “I have access to a very wide array of advanced technology that may be used to control the environment around me. That was an Oramania detector- oramania attracts electricity and will brighten up when charged with it. That is how we find it, generally,” Grant explained. “Now we will vacuum it all up.” He pulled a small circular object with a handle and a tube out of his pocket. “And we’re doing this why?” Marley replied confusedly. “As I said, Oramania has some interesting properties. Some of these properties are dangerous and must be contained. We cannot let the public be exposed to it. We should both be wearing gas masks right now,” Grant replied. “I want you to get some from your storage so we can begin.” Marley groaned. “Got it…” The two of them worked at vacuuming up all the Oramania until there wasn’t a single speck to be seen anywhere in the room. They vacuumed the walls and ceiling, sometimes having to stand on each other’s shoulders. Grant, having known his way around the shelter, worked the both of them to the bone until there was nothing left to vacuum. Marley noticed that the commander would also sometimes spend long amounts of time staring at the wall or scrubbing other kinds of dirt off the walls needlessly. “Preparing for the apocalypse, huh?” asked Marley jokingly. He stopped his snickering as soon as Grant gave him his cold glare. “We are done here, Quarrel.” “Awesome. So I’ve been meaning to ask you this whole time, if you’re the commander of the military, where are your guys at?” Marley asked. “They cannot know about what comes next,” said Grant. Marley glanced at him. “What?” “Get moving.” Grant pushed Marley forward, out the door, and pulled his assault rifle out and kept it pointed at Marley’s back. The two of them walked a few miles in silence until they reached a large stone fortress hidden away in the woods. In large cement letters the word SIREN was engraved on a stone block. Marley looked at the fortress. “Where are we?” “The old Fort SIREN. Not one man officially works here, it is largely unknown to the public and government. Do not talk about this to anybody, seeing as how it is just me, my scientist, and now you operating here.” “Just us, huh?” Marley said, eyeing Grant suspiciously. “You know, it’s pretty weird that you’re working in a military fortress illegally considering, y’know, you’re the commander of the military. Inside the fortress, the ground was dirty and trashed with chunks of the wall that was falling apart and a bunch of litter and rusted war machinery. There was a fire pit in the center of the grounds with an old unidentifiable war automobile with the rubber on its wheels burned out sitting next to it. “Well, where’s your guy?” Marley asked. “Not out here.” Grant gripped the grate of the fire pit and lifted it off, revealing a long ladder reaching far down below the earth. “All of these old fortresses came equipped with underground bomb shelters. Nobody knows about these but the military. Go on, then.” Marley gulped and slowly descended down beneath the ground, occasionally finding a missing bar on the ladder. He noticed that Grant seemed to know the steps by heart and wasn’t having any trouble climbing down. Once they reached the bottom, Grant flicked a light switch and a dim yellow light came on, revealing a large tunnel with several rooms off to the side, each with its own number and its owner’s name engraved onto a sign. “We will be going through here,” Grant said, forcing a lever to a door open. This room’s sign was labeled “Winston Rene”. Inside, a man in a lab coat was working with his back turned to the others, bent over a table and slowly moving his arm around. “Hey, friends! Sorry that I’m a tad pre-occupied here. I’ll be with you guys in a minute,” the man said. “Understood,” Grant said. “So have you given him the scoop yet, Grant?” the man said, turning his head back a bit to look at them. “I suppose I should,” the commander sighed. “Quarrel, what we are doing here is not within our legal rights and you must keep everything you see down here quiet.” “Not within our legal rights? You’re the commander of the military, what the hell are you doing?” asked Marley. “Have you ever consumed oramania, Quarrel?” the commander asked. “Well, uh, not yet,” said Marley. “It has several dangerous properties. So many that they are not all documented yet. Scientists are still running experiments and trying to determine what exactly it does to the body, Quarrel,” explained Grant. “That sounds bad,” said Marley. “These dangerous properties include the ability to give those who consume the drug superhuman strength, extreme durability, numbed senses, etcetera. It is a weapon, Quarrel, that I wish to optimize and utilize for the military,” Grant continued. “It could make us invincible. Our fathers just barely won our last major war. This drug will transform our soldiers and, by extent, our country.” “Holy shit. That’s crazy,” said Marley. “It is brilliant, and I feel that it is necessary,” Grant said. “This country cannot afford to lose more lives if another war were to happen.” “So that’s why we’re here,” said the man in the lab coat, finally turning around. “And your job is going to be to sneak us supplies. I have to stay here with my work and Grant has his military duties. Wesley Wheadon, by the way,” he said, extending his hand to Marley. “So am I getting paid for any of this?” Marley asked, shaking Wesley’s hand. “Well, yeah. You see, you’ve got a bit of a side job, too,” Wesley said. “We don’t have anything else to experiment on reliably, so you’re going to be selling some of this to the druggies in the area, and try your best to document the results.” “We’re using human guinea pigs for your experiments?” Marley said, shocked. “They’re already abusing this shit anyway,” Wesley said. “Most of them practically need the stuff to live. We’d be doing them a favor.” “You would get your 33% cut, of course. We will all come out of this rich and powerful,” said Grant. “So what do you say, Quarrel?” “Just call me Marley, man,” Marley said. “And yeah, whatever, plan makes sense. Never hurts to have more money, I guess. I just feel weird that the commander of the military’s getting involved in the drug trade.” “Don’t question it, man. You have no idea what was going through my head when he went to recruit me. Remember that, Grant?” Wesley asked. “I had to be more subtle with you, Marley, I apologize,” Grant said. “It’s fine. What should I do about The Oasis?” Marley asked. “Never return to it. My soldiers have already gone through the place and wrecked it. It is now on military watch,” Grant said. “I would not be able to protect you because it would raise suspicions if I did.” “Shit, man. Well, when do I start?” asked Marley. “Right now. It’s only 1 AM, you have all night to make a few sales,” Wesley said. “Here,” Grant said, handing Marley a medium-sized bag full of oramania. “That is a pound of oramania. The whole pound is worth about $5080. Try not to sell it all at once, try to spread it out between customers.” “Got it,” said Marley, beginning to climb up the ladder. “Nice meeting you, Wesley. Hey, we’re not going to be doing this for too long, are we?” “As long as it takes to perfect the recipe,” Wesley said. “Nice meeting you too, brother.” Marley ascended the ladder back out into the world, oramania tucked inside his shirt and a blade in his pocket, and walked outside the fortress towards the city. ---- A young man with hastily combed back brown hair ran through the halls of Kraffen’s famed research facility, Rainco Tower, with a plastic bag of oramania in his hand. He was wearing a stained and gross business suit and his clip-on tie was coming loose. He bumped into a few people who simply rolled their eyes at him - he was well-known around the building as the company lunatic. He was well educated in the fields of mechanics and technology, and was somewhat obsessed with his job as an oramania effects researcher. The man burst through a door into a large room with a stage, an enormous screen, and a big audience. There was already somebody else making a speech and showcasing some sort of unidentifiable and neatly put together machine to the crowd. The man ran up on the stage and watched as everybody turned their heads to him. He waited impatiently for the other person to finish up his speech, and audibly groaned when the other man began to stutter nervously. “Just give me the lectern, Paul,” the man said. “H-hang on a second, just let me finish this up-” Paul said. “Paul,” the man said. “This can’t wait! This is important!” Paul reluctantly stepped away from the lectern and watched, annoyed, as the other man grabbed the mic and started his speech. “Hello everybody,” he said. “My name is Claus Armstrong, I am a researcher of the dangerous properties and effects of the most recent drug to plague our streets. Oramania.” He held up the bag for the audience to see. “This is the first sample of pure oramania that we’ve been able to get our hands on. Having this sample and understanding its effects will no doubt start us down the path of eradicating this disease from this wonderful city of ours. Any questions?” The people in the crowd immediately started to make noise and conversing with each other. “Where’d you get the sample?” a man yelled from the crowd. “Oramania is a mineral found in some regions of the Palekaiko islands. We mined it inside of a cave,” said Claus. “I heard that the military found and raided a drug shop just earlier tonight. Did they find any more samples?” asked another man. “Unfortunately the shop was, strangely enough, completely free of oramania. They didn’t find a single speck of the stuff. It seems as though the shop owner expected the military’s arrival and packed up as much of it as possible,” Claus said. “Although, now that you mention it, it is a bit concerning that if that is the case, the military appears to be unable to keep its plans secret. Who would there be to leak-” “Claus!” Paul said from the back. “Keep focused. I want the lectern back.” “Just a second Paul. Any other questions?” Claus asked. “No? Well, here’s the other thing.” He went over to the side of the stage, did some tampering with a hidden wall projector, and an image of a map of Kraffen was projected onto the screen behind the stage. Certain streets were highlighted on the map. “These are the drug delivery routes of Kraffen. I’ve been carefully examining these routes recently and it all comes together perfectly, except for one variable. There’s a path that leads off into the forest, which we now know is because it points directly to The Oasis drug store. But the thing is, that was just a store, not a laboratory. And according to some of the soldiers who raided the shop, it was selling all sorts of things other than drugs - gas masks, lab equipment, chemicals, you name it. So where’s the laboratory, and where did the owner of the shop get these supplies?” The people in the crowd continued to talk amongst themselves in suspense and interest. “Well, we don’t know where the lab is, but I think we have a good idea of where the supplies are coming from. Everything that we saw being sold at The Oasis other than the drugs exists in some quantity at the Kraffen Hospital. The owner of the shop might work at the hospital. Probably maintenance or security, maybe even a nurse, unlikely that it would be a doctor or a surgeon. We have no evidence just yet, but I’m working towards getting permission to investigate the hospital staff myself,” said Claus. “Any questions?” “Well, shouldn’t we get a professional to do that?” asked Paul from behind. “Well, PAUL, I am quite confident in my abilities, thank you very much. I don’t see you spending hours out in the woods at night mapping out drug routes and delivery people and dealers!” Claus said intensely. Paul stared at him, wide-eyed and ready to run away. “Calm down, man.”